It’s a typical Indian liberal propensity to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. They are liberal till it suits them, and they turn dogmatically conservative when things go south
When Maqbool Fida Husain was busy making nude paintings of Hindu goddesses in the 1990s, he got unprecedented liberal support within and outside the country. He became an icon for everything progressive and modern, battling obscurantist, reactionary and medievalistic forces. The liberal grandstanding, however, was hollow, for they were the ones who competed with each other to get Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses banned, ironically even before the theocratic Iran and Islamist Pakistan could do so. Rushdie’s fate was sealed in India much before people here could get hold of the book. Hearsay was enough to get him ostracised!
History repeats itself, more often in India. So, when a Shivling was found in the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, liberals jumped again to mock at the idea. “Hope the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre is not next on the digging list,” wrote a social media celebrity and Trinamool Congress leader. Then there was a woman Muslim journalist, an ardent advocate of “Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb”, who too shared this disparaging post, to later pull it down! As fate would be, within weeks of this disdainfully progressive stand, these liberals found themselves invoking self-imposed “maun vrata” as a woman spokesperson from the BJP was called names, threatened rape, and even promised murder!
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It’s a typical Indian liberal propensity to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. They are liberal till it suits them, and they turn dogmatically conservative when things go south. They propound the French idea of secularism when it comes to Hindus, and invoke the Indian idea of “sarva dharma samabhava” vis-?-vis Muslims. It is this bastardisation of secularism to suit their prejudiced designs that is at the root of the current crisis, making people angry and upset.
Analysed from the French idea of secularism, Nupur Sharma may be well within her rights. But that can’t be the case from the Indian understanding of the term, as we have followed since Independence. In fact, she could have taken note of the 1985 Quran petition in the Calcutta High Court, where one Chandmal Chopra questioned certain ayats of the holy book to say that they promoted “disharmony, feeling of enmity, hatred and ill-will between different religious communities and incite people to commit violence and disturb public tranquillity”.
Justice Bimal Chandra Basak’s observation while passing the judgement was interesting. He accepted the Muslim claim that the Quran was the word of God, so if any of the ayats sounded hateful, this must be the work of human distortion. Justice Basak’s line of argument was plain and simple: How could a belief system based on the word of God prescribe an ungodly behaviour pattern? The holy book and its ayats, as per the court verdict, thus held no threat to public peace or communal harmony.
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Nupur could be faulted on another count, too: A political party spokesperson is expected to absorb the worst of provocations, more so if she belongs to the ruling dispensation. Her losing cool and making certain unsavoury comments, even if they were supposedly backed by certain Islamic texts, were a breach of the code of conduct as a spokesperson, especially at a time when India was treading a geopolitical fine line. It just fitted into the global toolkit manual aimed at cornering India, leaving hardly any leeway for the Modi dispensation.
The Indian government could have looked the Qatar administration in the eye, reminding its emirs of Maqbool Fida Husain who received that country’s citizenship after mocking at Hindu goddesses. It could have told Qatar how Hindus, comprising 15.4 percent of the population in that country, haven’t been granted permission to open new places of worship.
Similarly, India could have reminded Iran how anyone deserting Islam for any other religion invoked death sentence in that country, and that India was one of the few non-pariah friends it was left with globally! It may or may not have worked. So, was it worth the risk of losing a relatively pro-India ecosystem (despite seasonal OIC condemnation for India on Kashmir) in the Arab world and West Asia? The Narendra Modi government certainly didn’t think so.
The real challenge for the government comes now: Besides providing security to Nupur Sharma against those baying for her blood, how does the government deal with the perceived duality in reaction to things Hindu and Muslim: While Hindu gods and goddesses are regularly mocked at in the name of liberalism, there is a sense of heightened piety and piousness among our liberals when it comes to Islam. It is this dichotomy that creates large-scale fury. If Salman Rushdie is rusticated, how can Maqbool Fida Husain be celebrated? If Nupur Sharma is condemned, how come Mahua Moitra is feted?
Post-Nupur episode, any liberal covering fire for the likes of Audrey Truschke and Wendy Doniger, who invariably mock Hinduism and Hindu gods and goddesses at every given opportunity, would be closely scrutinised. What can further complicate things for the Modi government is vindication among the toolkit club that international pressure may work against the ruling dispensation in India. As Truschke gloatingly tweeted after India’s ‘fringe’ defence to the Qatari establishment: “A good reminder that the BJP responds to international pressure.”
As for the liberal propensity to side with the worst of the illiberal, it’s a global phenomenon. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes in Heretic: Why Islam Needs A Reformation Now, “I never cease to be amazed by the fact that non-Muslims who consider themselves liberals — including feminists and advocates of gay rights — are so readily persuaded by these crass means to take the Islamists’ side against Muslim and non-Muslim critics.”
For Indian liberals, there’s an added dimension: And it just cannot be explained via ‘dhimmitude’. Yes, of course, there’s an element of inferiority complex that has been internalised, but more than that it’s sheer fear of the sword that makes liberals dance to the Islamist tune. As one columnist retorted while declining this writer’s offer to write an article comparing liberal reactions to Gyanvapi vis-?-vis the Nupur episode: “Oh, Muslims are too angry right now. Let things cool down a bit!”
As for Muslim liberals, they invariably rally behind the Islamists. They become part of the larger ummah. As actor-director Farhan Akhtar tweeted after Nupur’s apology: “A forced apology is never from the heart.”
Faith stumps their ideology. And their humanity stumbles at the feet of religion. So, no redemption for Nupur even after her apology. Not a word of concern for threats she and her family face!
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